


The Night Vale Horror

by DJClawson



Series: Child of the Cosmos [1]
Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Backstory, Established Relationship, Gen, Mentions Non-Con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-06
Updated: 2013-08-12
Packaged: 2017-12-22 15:20:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 17,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/914799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DJClawson/pseuds/DJClawson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carlos decides to investigate Cecil's family, and why they aren't in Night Vale.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story references H.P. Lovecraft's "The Dunwich Horror." If you haven't read it, you'll be fine, but you should read it anyway, because Lovecraft was obviously a huge inspiration for Welcome to Night Vale and you'll enjoy it for that. And it's public domain.

Chapter 1

It all started rather innocently.

“Cecil,” Carlos said over an obligatory slice at Rico’s that he was avoiding actually eating because it was slithering toward the salt faster than he was willing to deal with, “When your birthday?”

“Hmmm?” Cecil was, of course, was sipping his coffee and trying not to make that intense eye contact that gave away almost everything about what he was thinking. He hadn’t hesitated at ordering moving toppings, even when they all teemed up on him. “Oh, Carlos. You’re going to make me feel so _old_.”

Cecil was probably older than him. There was no quantitative way of determining that yet, but Carlos was pretty sure of it. Sometimes his hair was grey (and other times it was entirely not) and it looked like it suited him, like had been through things to make him grey, years instead of horrifying experiences that were putting Carlos into that territory faster than he liked. “I didn’t ask the year,” Carlos pointed out in what he hoped was a polite voice as he speared a vicious piece of sliced mushroom. “I just wouldn’t want to miss it.” He’d skipped mentioning his own birthday, which came and went eight months into his Night Vale stay, because he was afraid that festivities would involve animal or human sacrifice. Or at the very least a lot of blood. “I would feel terrible if I didn’t at least get you a card.”

Cecil melted, almost literally. He looked lighter, as if he was suddenly boneless and his body was still held up only because organs and flesh didn’t yet realize the discrepancy. “Oh, sweet Carlos. You don’t have to do that, especially since the City Council lifted the mandatory card purchasing law and the mob burned down the Hallmark store. It turns out the cards were being shipped in from Desert Bluffs, of all places! Being locked into the fiery building was really too good for those people, don’t you think?”

“You didn’t answer my question,” Carlos said, again trying to sound very patient. Not that he was so serious about the card, but something had sparked his curiosity about Cecil’s agelessness, and once it became a theory to be tested there was no hope for it.

Cecil’s answer was surprisingly straightforward. “February 30th. You don’t have to worry about, because it rarely comes up.”

So Cecil had a birthday, which meant he was born. “Have you ever celebrated it?”

“Once, when I was in high school. The days were getting all stretched out and flabby so we had to chop them up into smaller bits, which if it happens at all usually happens in the summer,” Cecil replied. “I got a rocket launcher and six legless dogs, and I can’t remember what else. I was never much into birthdays.” His face hardened again, this time with worry. “Oh _no_. I didn’t miss _your_ birthday, did I? I can’t even think of where I would get legless dogs this time of year since Jargon Scott went out of business. I could get you some foxes with human fists. You would like them. They’re so cute!”

“It’s not for a long time,” Carlos said. He’d already realized this was not the time or place to probe for Cecil’s age, but it was nice to know he had an age.

            *********************************************** 

Carlos did think about these things – who and what was his boyfriend – but much more so when he was around Cecil, on a date or at one of their places. For all of his hemming and hawing about the state of things, Cecil had a much better home – a real house with only two other boarders, one of whom was quite possibly dead or non-corporeal and therefore not much of a bother. Night Vale had traditional houses, too old to be prefab and meant for big families or people who came from now-deceased big families. Family was a lot more fluid with death such a constant menace, no matter what anyone said about having to earn it. If that was true, people in Night Vale were racking up those points fast. Cecil had nothing to reveal about the house, except that he once had it to himself after an extended street-cleaning season and he actually missed the midnight chanting and pre-dawn wails filling up the empty rooms. His also had the choice of rooms, so it meant a real tub, the kind with feet (brass ones, fortunately), in addition to a modern shower, and slightly thicker walls. Or so he said. Either way it was better than a lab and a room that wasn’t the lab and had a cot to indicate it, even if lab things crept into the cot room and sometimes he fell asleep at his desk. Carlos could always hear the incessant hum of the neon sign of Big Rico’s, but Cecil’s house was more isolated and had only forbidding desert noises. He even got along pretty well with his Faceless Woman and said people should put more effort into it, but it also helped to keep considerate hours for ghosts and other entities who made his home theirs.

When they were alone, or as alone as they could be without driving the car out to the edge of the canyon, Carlos could forget about the impossible clocks on the walls and the salt lines covering more ancient ritual marks in the wooden floor and focus on Cecil. An initial game was to try to describe him to himself, but in the end it was only frustrating and Cecil would ask why he was frowning.

One thing Carlos was fairly sure about was Cecil’s hair – it did exist, and it was fairly short, but not very, and it changed colors. Not all at once, of course, but if he tried to notice the color and record it, he would get a different result. It was usually blond, but never quite the same shade. In the evening light it looked grayer. One moonless night, in the harsh bathroom light, it was white like snow, though Cecil laughed when Carlos said that and said of course snow wasn’t white in Night Vale. When morning light crept in through the poorly-drawn curtains it could be clear, like Cecil had a nest of fishing line on his head and it shined a little when the sun hit it just right.     

It was pretty much the same with Cecil’s irises, though it had more to do with mood. He tried to track it but it gave him a headache.

What Carlos knew of Night Vale was that this was not a universal truth of its citizens. Sure, people were different, but in different, wildly inconsistent ways, and a lot of them could be described and even stayed that way. And no one, he was sure, looked like Cecil. This thought sent him on a little scavenger hunt for family photos which yielded nothing except some burned prints of precious pets that must have exploded at some point but left tattered remains worth keeping. Cecil never mentioned any relatives in passing, and the phone book didn’t have another Baldwin listed. It didn’t have anyone listed. Everyone knew phone books were mostly blank and cannibalistic, Cecil reminded him with a gentle laugh as he pulled back the torn fabric of Carlos’s shirt and bandaged his wounds. Bedsides, the only number it did list was for the color purple and the line was always busy.

Of course he could just ask. He was a scientist. He investigated. But Carlos sat on the idea because maybe it was the Night Vale equivalent of asking someone’s age, which he also hadn’t done. And of Cecil had living parents, he would at least bring them up from time to time, right? Or Carlos would be invited to an awkward dinner where he would have to blame all of his social inadequacies on being a scientist? They probably died as tragically as everyone else, and tragedy was not new boyfriend conversation territory.

So when the matter did come out, it was roundabout. Carlos was up making coffee, having already showered and dressed. As usual, he was up before Cecil, whose work day started and ended much later, but he was still never far from it. Cecil was woken by the ancient fax machine struggling to life at his desk, and Carlos headed off by tearing off the new fax and sitting down on the bed. “It’s from – “

“Steve Carlsburg, I know. Ugh!” Cecil turned over and away. “He knows very well what time I do my broadcast but he always contacts me hours before. Like he knows I’m going to forget him or something!”

“If I ask you what’s the deal between you and Steve Carlsburg, will you actually tell me?”

“He’s a know-it-all, that’s what!” Cecil said with more gusto than he usually had in the morning. “There’s being knowledgeable and intelligent – like _you_ , dear Carlos – and then there’s shoving it in people’s faces. And he makes any municipal meeting he’s in go on and on! Like there’s not things on TV that we need to get back to?”

The only thing on Cecil’s television, an ancient contraption in an oak cabinet with a dial and a real color adjuster, was a demented show about aliens stocking and unstacking boxes, and it gave people nosebleeds. He chose not to bring it up. “Should I take that as a no, then? I’m not going to hear about your sordid past with Mr. Carlsburg?”

“What?” Cecil propped himself up on his elbows, blinking in the sunlight. His iris were colorless. “Oh. Oh no, Carlos – it’s nothing like that. As if Steve Carlsburg would dare ...” He didn’t finish that, but Carlos kept staring at him anyway. “He’s a bully. He always was and will be.”

Ahhh. No wonder Cecil went on like a kid in grade school with a slightly better sense of pronunciation when he talked about him. “What did he do to you?” He wasn’t that serious because it couldn’t be that serious, or surely Steve Carlsburg would be dead now? Telly was barely alive and all he did to displease Cecil Baldwin, voice of Night Vale, was cut hair. Carlos tried to breach the subject more carefully. “I was bullied as a kid, too.”

“ _You?_ ” Cecil’s eyes flashed some indeterminable color before falling back to a more usual extremely light blue. “Why would anyone mistreat _you?_ Beautiful, perfect Car –,”

“Uh, so you may find this ... difficult to believe, but not everybody thinks that. Or has thought that of me in the past.” He tried to be bashful, because maybe it would calm Cecil down, as the man was obviously contemplating the deaths of these here fore un-described people. “I was a nerd. I wasn’t good at sports, I had bad acne, I had actual prospects for life after high school – you know the story.” He shrugged. “While I’m sure you were class president or whatever – “

“I wasn’t.” Cecil didn’t state it to get into an unintentional contest of who was more miserable in high school, which was good. Carlos had enough of that in college. He just stated it the way he stated everything he knew to be true, as a fact. “This isn’t a very interesting topic.”

Carlos knew exactly what to say now. “I’m very interested, Cecil. I’m very interested in you.”

He didn’t even have to add “for science” and Cecil was putty in his hands, though he retained his actual bone structure and did not collapse into a lump on the bed. “We were in third grade, and he wrote ‘Outsider’ on my locker.”

“So that’s a big insult in Night Vale, huh?” He smiled and interrupted Cecil’s fast-forming attempts to trip over his own words and disown them. “I know what you meant. But it was a big deal for you?”

“It was big deal because Steve has bad judgment and should keep his mouth shut, but he doesn’t really lie. He _thought_ it was true, so _I_ thought it might be true. And he had good reasons. My parents weren’t from Night Vale. But I was young and no one had told me yet, so that’s how I found out.”

So it all was rather traumatizing, or so the expression on Cecil’s naked face told Carlos, and he wasn’t even very good at reading expressions. “But you _are_ from Night Vale.”

Cecil sounded like he needed the boost. He nodded. “My mother was on a road trip and she went into labor nearby, so she came to the hospital and I was born here. On a technicality. And she couldn’t stay. Night Vale didn’t accept her, like it accepted you. I don’t know how long she stayed. A couple weeks at most, and then the town spit her out.”

Carlos did know what he meant about the town accepting people, and had a trail of dead lab assistants to prove it. But he’d never heard it broken of or given it too much thought himself before getting too worked up in fright. What he couldn’t accept was the idea that there was a bone of Cecil’s body that was made up of something other than Night Vale. He was quintessentially Night Valian.

“You know most people can’t find this town, right?”

“Huh?” Cecil was lost in himself for a moment, which was very rare when Carlos was in the room. Or the general periphery. Or on the phone. “The void by the entrance does suck up a lot of traffic.”

“What’s so scientifically interesting about this town isn’t just what’s in it. People do try to find it and don’t succeed, and not because of a void. There are people in towns nearby that have never heard of it. It’s not on maps – you understand that?”

“That’s a shame,” Cecil said, scratching his head. “They’re really missing out on so many wonderful civic opportunities. Maybe we should make a pamphlet.”

Carlos rolled his eyes. “What I’m saying is that your mother found Night Vale because it _wanted_ to be found. It couldn’t have all been happenstance. Night Vale _wanted_ you to be born here. If that’s not a ringing endorsement of your status as a citizen, I don’t know what is.”

His boyfriend brightened up considerably. So did the room, just a little bit, in a way that was barely noticeable if you weren’t used to looking for it. “That is sort of what they said, when I asked about it. But it sounds so much better from you, Carlos. You are _such_ a good speaker. Have you thought about a career in radio?”

“It sounds too dangerous,” Carlos said, and ran his hands through Cecil’s hair, giving his head a little shake. “So who raised you? I was raised by my aunt.”

“Oh, I would much rather here about _you_.”

“I asked first.” If he didn’t press the point he never would get anywhere.

“Well, I don’t know.” Cecil had to think about it. “Different people. Whoever was alive, I guess. I wasn’t the only kid without parents. I assumed they were dead or turned to stone or trapped between dimensions or living in the void like everyone else’s. So I went to house from house, and it wasn’t a abnormal. And I spent a lot of time at the radio station.”

“Not exactly a surprise,” Carlos said. Neither was the idea that Cecil’s home life had been uneven. “Do you if your parents are ... you know.”

“Oh wow. I haven’t thought about that in _years_.” Cecil stared up at the ceiling when he was thinking deeply, as if Carlos’s presence was just too distracting for him. “I don’t know whether my mom is alive, as she’s never come back. But she was alive when she left, so that’s a good sign? She must be old now. Oh, and her name was Marie Baldwin. That’s about it. Nobody thought to take a picture of her. That _is_ kind of rude.”

Carlos knew; he had gone through a lot of cameras either because they exploded, or the film did, or people smashed them. “And ... your dad?”

“Oh, I don’t know anything about him.” He said it so casually that he might as well have been deciding on a breakfast cereal. “I know they weren’t married, and he wasn’t with her. She did come in with someone else, but he died in an accident in the hospital. I don’t think I can say anything definitive about my father, actually.”

Carlos was not ready to accept that notion that Cecil was born of two ordinary human parents, because there was too much about him that was interesting, more so than other people. He could pass as human – he certainly had all the right parts and thankfully, and none of the wrong ones – but Carlos would bet his dissertation that he wasn’t. There was some reason Night Vale had wanted Cecil so badly, and Cecil, being Cecil, never even thought to question it.

Which meant Cecil didn’t know, or necessarily care to know, so Carlos let him change the subject, and talked about his parents instead. They were still in Guatemala, being too old to bother with immigration now, and yes, he had visited them multiple times since he left, and it all was a very typical story to him but Cecil was enraptured as if he were listening to an expert retelling the Iliad.  
And so the subject was dropped. Sort of.

            *********************************************** 

At Night Vale General Hospital (down the road from Night Vale Specific Hospital), Carlos learned something mundane but fascinating about Night Vale birth certificates: the lines for both mother and father were both marked “optional” and there was an “other” option - also optional.

He would have tried City Hall first, but the council was in session, and he knew better than to be in a mile radius of them. The second possibility was the court house, which was in a secret, undisclosed location only officially known to the sheriff’s secret police, but generally known to be in the break room of the Payless Shoe Store.

At the hospital there was not a great concern for privacy or security. The bored receptionist kept one head buried in a magazine while the other gave him instructions on how to disrupt the runes that kept the records office locked, and how to reestablish them on his way out, if he would be so kind. It was kind of a mean way to find out things about his boyfriend, but scientific curiosity was a harsh mistress, and he had spent a good part of the ride convincing himself that this was for SCIENCE!

But there it was, right under the B’s – a perfectly ordinary piece of paper that said “Certificate of Live Birth” and not a whole lot else. The mother line said Marie Baldwin. The father line was blank, as was the optional third entry. Cecil had been born male and slightly overweight for a human baby – 9 pounds – and there was no species designation, now that he thought about it. His birth date was listed correctly – February 30th, 1968. Cecil was 45 years old. Kind of. He might count his years differently, which given his non-existent birth date he was probably free to do.

But there was one other important take-away from Carlos’s invasive snooping. The doctor’s name he didn’t recognize, and was probably did given the odds of things in Night Vale, but the attending nurse was listed as “Nurse Josie Woods.”

And how many old women did he know named Josie?


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was thinking of letting my story drop to the third page before posting, to give others more time at the top. What do you guys think?

Chapter 2

Maybe the basket of exotic salts was a little too much, but they sold them because people needed them. Cecil lined his counters with at least three different kinds, and of course the door and all the floors beneath the windows with Mortons. Old Woman Josie (out back the parking lot) seemed impressed with it, though a little hesitant because he was a scientist! So he probably had questions about angels. Or so she inferred.

“A lot of scientists work for the government,” she said rather obstinately, but still eyeing the gift basket in his hands.

“I don’t,” he said. “I work for a private university.”

She gave the porch a little stomp and ushered him in, eventually offering him a seat and a sliced half of a corn muffin. Where she got visible corn, he had no idea. “I didn’t know you were coming over or I would have more.”

“It’s fine.” He choked on an overly dry bit of muffin. “It’s very good. Thank you for your hospitality.”

She seemed to relax a bit as he ate and sipped her tea, which was invisible, and quite possibly not even there at all, but he wasn’t going to begin to guess the truth of that. As for the angels, she certainly acted like they were around, and Carlos had become convinced on an earlier visit that even if they did not exist, something else was moving around her little home. Sheets were rustling, doors opening and closing slightly, and occasionally something would tip over and fall to the ground – all explainable occurrences if they didn’t happen so often, as if there were several people trying to politely move around the house without disturbing anyone. He saw a bowl clamor to the ground from the kitchen, and a moment later it was back on the counter.

“Did you come to ask about the angels?” Josie tapped at her tea cup. “They’re very upset, you know, that the Sheriff keeps insisting they don’t exist. I know Cecil has to say it on his program but it’s not much for their self-esteem.”

“If I were allowed to acknowledge their existence or talk directly to them – theoretically – than I would probably say not to feel too bad. Lots of things that do exist aren’t acknowledged in Night Vale.” And what he was saying was borderline illegal, which was why he phrased it as he did, and furtively looked over his shoulder to see nothing but a wall with a flower print that was not currently moving.

“That’s nice of you,” Josie said. “They’re very pleased, I’m sure.”

“But I’m really here to talk about Cecil, if you don’t mind.”

She stopped stirring her spoon in the probably-empty cup. “Now I don’t want to be a gossip, but I think he has a crush on you.”

She smiled like she was sharing a secret, not the town’s biggest non-secret, so he did little to disabuse her of this notion. “I’ll have to ask him. But there’s something I wanted to ask _you_ about _him_. You were a nurse at Night Vale General, correct?”

“And Night Vale Specific, for a very specific amount of time,” she said. “Why, no one’s talked about that in ages. Me, not the hospital. But then again I didn’t retire yesterday.”

“And you were the attending nurse when Cecil was born.”

“I saw a lot of people born, young man. You’re going to have to be more specific.”

Carlos narrowed his eyes. Maybe Cecil as a baby wasn’t memorable, but his birth was. “His mother’s name was Marie. She couldn’t stay because she was Outsider.”

Josie sucked her teeth. “Sometimes the kids were so mean to him about it when he was young. But that’s what kids do – find something to pick on. If it wasn’t that it would be something else.” She looked over her shoulder, then back art Carlos. “Erika wants to say hello.”

“Um, okay.”

“He knows you can’t say anything back.”

“Um, okay.”

“Do you want to buy a used light bulb?”

They were getting off track. “Can you tell me about Cecil’s mother?”

“There’s not a lot to say, really. She wasn’t here for very long,” Josie said. “Do you want me to describe her? You shouldn’t be concerned with someone’s looks, my dear. You should care about what’s on the inside.”

“I just think there might be ... something about the story that Cecil might not know. And I want to know. Um, for science.”

She gave him a quick look because she was one of the sharper tools in Night Vale’s drawer, but she was deciding not to call him on it. “Since you’re such a bright man, perhaps you can tell the difference between something someone should know and something they’re better off not knowing.”

“I am very aware of that sort of thing,” Carlos said, his fingers curling around the arm of the couch. “Please.”

Josie set aside her tea, and her face had a different sort of focus as she peered at him, her eyes meeting his over the golden rims of her glasses. “Ms. Baldwin didn’t want to tell us anything about the father. Not until Cecil was actually born gestational parts, which we saw a lot of, but apparently the man who was with her didn’t. There was a bunch of cub scouts in the hospital that night being treated with radiation from their camping trip, and he took one of their rifles and blew his brains out in the hallway after seeing the child, but we had some new tiles on the floor so it wasn’t much of a mess.”

“Was he her boyfriend?”

“I don’t know, really. She said he was a friend. He had a car and he helped her get away from some very mean people. His nickname was Shaggy, probably because he had a beard and long hair and this was before it was a regular thing. We told her one of the guns misfired and he died in an accident. I don’t think she really believed us, but, well ...” She shrugged.

“Could Cecil’s father have been human?”

“Don’t be racist. I won’t tolerate it in this house!”

He had realized she wasn’t joking. “What I mean to say is, did she say what Cecil’s father _was?_ ”

Her shoulders sagged further, as if they were now far too heavy for her. “She said it happened in Dunwich.”

The name tickled his brain but he couldn’t place it. Instead he let her continue.

“What she didn’t want to say was that she wasn’t a willing participant. She stayed for three weeks to recover. This had all been very difficult for her. She said after it happened she went to New York to get an abortion because she couldn’t afford to go to Puerto Rico, but either she couldn’t find a good doctor or she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Not for religious reasons. She was terrified, but she said she _just couldn’t do it_. But when she finally went to the hospital, they started running all kinds of tests, and she realized she had to get out of there to protect the baby.”

They probably thought it was some kind of mutant, or at least a biohazard. Carlos did a quick calculation in his head. This was before Roe vs. Wade, and showing up without a husband made it even worse. “How did she get from New York to Night Vale?” He couldn’t pinpoint where Night Vale was, but it was almost definitely in New Mexico or California.

“She said the drive only took a few hours.” Josie thought this highly unremarkable. “I know you might not think that Night Vale cares for the people who live here, but it does more caring than other places. She needed to find it, so it was found. This was the only place he could be born.”

Josie’s story ended, but Carlos let it settle in his brain, one hand tapping his unused red highlighter (which was technically not a writing utensil, per the bylaws) against a blank pad.

“You can see now why we might not have wanted to tell him all this.” Josie reached for a new cup of tea, empty but steaming. An angel must have refreshed it. “He does this thing for the radio – ‘My mother used to tell me’ when he wants to be folksy. But he’s talking about someone who raised him. He’d had a lot of mothers in that sense.”

“Has anyone ever tried to contact her?” Carlos asked. “His real mother.”

She looked at him as if he was completely mad. He did get that a lot, but this time it was far more personal and exacting. “I assume you would never say anything to Cecil that would hurt him.”

“No.” Intentionally. Cecil remained too much of an unknown to promise otherwise.

“Good boy,” she said, and that was the end of the conversation.

            ***********************************************

Research beyond that did not go very well. The internet in Night Vale was spotty and heavily censored. Searches for Dunwich or Marie Baldwin came up with nothing. If she was alive, she wasn’t on Facebook. Still, he couldn’t be totally shocked that Cecil could be connected to another town not found on a map.

He tried to breach the subject over a lovely dinner of slight-grilled horse meat in Cecil’s apartment. “I was doing some research on the history of the town.”

“Oh?” Cecil abandoned his cutlery and rested his head in his palms as if Carlos was going to tell a long, beautiful story. “I can say with some certainty that I know a bit about town history. I’ve participated in every Town History week since they were unbanned twenty-three years ago! But I bet _you_ could find out so much more, being a _scientist_.” Cecil had never asked what kind of scientist Carlos was, and Carlos was still amused by that.

“I’m not as intuitive as you think I am.”

“ _That_ ,” Cecil said with bright, almost glowing eyes, “ _is impossible_.”

Carlos smiled to calm down Cecil, or at least make him cut back on the glare. “I was researching important events. You know, like your, uh, birth.”

Cecil frowned sadly. “That can’t be very important. Now who’s doing the overestimating, huh?”

“Well, it was _significant_ ,” Carlos said, needling his boyfriend a little. “I was going to pull the tapes from it, but I can’t get into the library, and Target’s out of super bear mace again.”

“Maybe I should do an editorial on how important it is to keep safety supplies stocked,” Cecil mused. “You give me such good ideas. But anyway, you don’t have to risk your life for nothing. A lot of tapes were pulled after Algonquin died, and more since then, because information is always changing, you know? Our wonderful City Council doesn’t want people the wrong ideas.”

“Algonquin?”

“My predecessor,” Cecil explained, his eyes lighting up – this time not literally – at the name. “This probably isn’t going to be interesting to you, an important scientist working on important ideas – “

“Trust me, it is.”

“ – but I used to hang out in the studio when I was young. Very young. He was kind of a babysitter, I guess. But that’s not how I got the job! I did the internship and read the scriptures and performed the correct rituals when the stars were right, just like he did!”

“I wouldn’t imagine otherwise.” Carlos decided to put more effort into his steak before it grew wings again. “What was he like?”

“Well, let me think ... by the end of his life, very fuzzy and very soft. And pink. He said he had a great body for radio.”

“Did he always know what was going on in town, even if it was still just happening and he was in his studio – like you?”

“I’m just reporting the news,” Cecil said with some embarrassment. “And he had his Third Eye opened too, just like I did, though I’m not sure if that really helps.” He unconsciously scratched the small mark in the center of his forehead from his final trepanning. It was so slight that at first, Carlos thought it was a chicken pox scar. “Some people think drilling holes into people’s head is just silly superstition.”

Carlos nearly chocked on his mouth full of delicious meat, but still managed not to laugh. And he was glad he was laughing about this.

“Anyway, I don’t think the tape would be there and I definitely think you shouldn’t risk your life in a library to find it, but I do know that it was much harder than it is today for Outsiders to get into Night Vale. Lucky for us, right?” He beamed.

“I was thinking,” Carlos said after much hesitation and careful chewing of his meat so it wasn’t in any way still alive when it hit his stomach, as that could be quite disastrous, “that when I go back to make my report, maybe I could try to look up your mother. To see what happened to her, if I can.”

“Why would you possibly want to do that?”

It was a pretty good question. Cecil was upset enough about the upcoming journey back to the East Coast Carlos was making to file reports, renew his grants, and see his family. It was so hard to keep in touch in Night Vale, where all the incoming calls seemed to go straight to voice mail, and outgoing ones would be overcome by static or drop off if he said something too interesting or important. Ultimately, he decided on the truth. “I want to know about you.”

“Then ask,” Cecil replied, a little flustered.

“Scientifically,” Carlos stammered, looking for a way to justify his creepy obsession with his boyfriend. At least he didn’t put it on the radio. “Haven’t you ever wondered about your mother, or have you just ignored her because she’s an Outsider?”

Cecil’s face darkened, and so did the bulbs in the lamps. “You know I have nothing against Outsiders. I have less against them than anyone else in this town.”

“But you haven’t thought about her. You said so yesterday.”

“She’s my mother. I don’t have to think about her the way I think about ordinary things,” he said, his voice slipping into that overly-pronounced mode to hide his frustration. “I don’t remember her and until this moment I never thought I would have any way of finding her, so I think about other things.”

“And what about your father – “

“And she gave me up because she had to, not because she wanted to send me away and take care of her other kids!”

Carlos’s hands tightened around his utensils. “My mom didn’t send me away. She send me somewhere were I would have a better life. A life that I’d earned at school.” He added, “And I visit her. I call. Do you know how much it costs to call South America from Night Vale? How hard it is to get reception?”

“You at least know her number!”

Their dinner descended into insults and passive aggressive mumbling, and after Carlos got into the shower, he leaned his head against the wall as the water flowed down his body, sandy and sweat-layered from the long desert day, he realized he’d already broken his promise to Old Woman Josie. He hadn’t just upset Cecil, he’d caused their first fight. He didn’t want to fight with Cecil over anything, much less personal manners he had no right looking into in the first place. Cecil wasn’t a lab rat to be examined and ultimately dissected. He was a person. He was a very important person to Carlos, more important than anyone else in Night Vale, maybe more important than anyone else in the world.

He punched the wall a few times. It hurt his knuckles and the pain felt good. It felt appropriate.

When he finally came out and toweled off his hair, Cecil was in bed. Carlos hesitantly climbed next to him and kissed the back of Cecil’s neck. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to fight with you.”

“Oh Carlos.” Cecil flipped over. ‘Perfect, _perfect_ Carlos. I shouldn’t have said those things.”

“Some of them were true,” Carlos said, his fingers just naturally intertwining with Cecil’s. “I won’t bring it up again, okay?”

“Mmmmm,” was just kind of all Cecil said as he buried his face in the crook of Carlos’s neck and they fell asleep that way, tranquility restored.

            ***********************************************

The days up to Carlos’s departure weren’t just nerve-wrecking for scientific reasons, with questions hanging in the air like if he would actually be able to get out of Night Vale, if any of his notes or readings would make it out with him, and perhaps more importantly, if he would get back in. Cecil was charmingly making it worse by fretting about his absence. “But if something really _scientific_ happens?”

“I’m sure you’ll give me a full report,” Carlos said as he hauled another box of binders to the car and tossed it in the trunk. He had a reentry note from the City Council, whatever that meant, and the back of it had a coupon for that sporting good store where people disappeared. He was pretty sure he could navigate around the void in the highway. He had been to a nearby town once or twice for better cell reception and supplies. “I think Night Vale can survive without me for two weeks.” Though he wasn’t sure how _many_ of them would. “And I need that grant money. Seismographs and Geiger counters don’t pay for themselves.”

“You could grow some!” Cecil said, making it abundantly clear that he didn’t know what either of those things were. Carlos laughed and kissed him on the cheek before heading back into the lap for yet another broken piece of equipment to be examined and then replaced. This one leaked green ooze.

Cecil helped by getting water and eventually coffee, and they sat on the car, looking at the setting sun glowing past the radiation of the canyon. “So, um, I was thinking.”

Carlos raised and eyebrow and waited patiently for the rest of it.

“If you did decide to look up my mother – you know, for science – then I would probably want to hear the results. Like what happened to her or if she’s alive or something like that.”

“For science?”

“Yes, of course,” Cecil stammered, and this time, Carlos knew not to press the point.     


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

For the first time in a year and four months, Carlos wasn’t scared. He found the situation intensely boring.

The plane ride was agony. There were no surprises, no implicate threats, nothing out of the ordinary. He had thought he would be relieved to know he was finally somewhere where a shadowy government agency wouldn’t be monitoring his thoughts, but mostly he felt lonely, and didn’t know what to do with himself.

He called Cecil from the airport. Cecil had a rented phone so Carlos could leave messages without worrying about filling up the voicemail. “I’m in Newark. I’ll be in New York in half an hour,” he said, trying not to say anything that would get deleted by the Sheriff’s secret police. “I miss you.”

Tía Gabriela was waiting for him at Penn Station. “ _Dios mio_ , your hair!”

“I know. I have to get it cut while I’m here.” He kissed her on the top of the head as she was more than a head shorter than him, and seemed to be getting shorter all the time. “There’s only one barber in Night Vale. He’s not very good.” And he was, it was not worth mentioning, insane. Maybe Carlos could try a big chain store like Supercuts. Cecil couldn’t declare war on a franchise.

Her apartment had the familiar smells of a home well-used and well-dusted, and there was nothing in the fridge that was going to attack him, so that was nice. His brother Marco was working downtown, fourteen-hour days at some fancy restaurant, and he had a loft there. Tía Gabriela said she was sure he was taking something to stay awake, but he said that was what all the chefs did and it was okay as long as it wasn’t heroin. She wanted Carlos to get to the bottom of it. He didn’t know his brother that well – Marco came over much older, and after Carlos had left for graduate school. But he promised her anyway.

After a strangely undisturbed night sleep, he was dragged out of the house and into weather that he now felt was very, very cold. His aunt thought it was nice weather, much better than what they’d been having recently, and he really didn’t need that second scarf. As they walked in the park he told her about life in Night Vale, or tried to. He got stuck on a lot of things, either because he instinctively feared being overheard or because his mouth went dry like it did when he tried to describe something over the phone and the call mysteriously dropped.

“I think the town likes me,” he said, adding quickly, “I think the _people_ in the town like me.”

“Of course they do,” His tía said, patting him on the arm. “Your mother asked me to find out if you’ve find a nice girl to settled down with yet.”

They paused, looked at each other, then broke into laughter. Only after a minute or two could they resume their walk.

“Seriously though, is there anyone special in your life?”

“I may have met someone,” Carlos said with a grin.

“And this is the reason you’re going back to the desert for another year?”

“Part of it,” he said, which was quite true. There were still a lot of unexplained things to research, or continue researching.

“Do you love him?”

“It’s kind of, um early for that.” He looked at his shoes. They still had Night Vale sand in them. “But yes. I do.”

“And he’s not doing a dissertation on anything?”

“He’s a radio host. What do you have against academics?”

“They were never very good to you,” she said with another loving pat. “What’s wrong?”

She noticed that he’d frozen up at the entrance to the metal-gated circle. “Let’s just move on.”

“Why? What’s wrong with a dog park?”

            ***********************************************

Cecil had changed his voicemail to, “I miss you. Nothing is interesting in Night Vale without you – except municipally-approved items of interest, of course. Leave a message.”

As his stop approached, Carlos re-listened to the message as the university town came into view. “I miss you too. And I got my hair cut. Don’t worry. It will grow back.” He added, “Love you,” and stepped out onto the Amtrak platform. His hair (or lack thereof it) felt fresh and clean in the New England breeze.

By now, most of the packages he mailed before leaving California had arrived and were stacked up in his office, or the part of it that wasn’t taken over by three different TAs. Everything in the office was strangely still, as if shadows were free of lurking terror and the lack of white noise was immediately getting to his head.

With a little while alone to himself before meeting with the department heads, he did some research. Somehow he was unsurprised by the lack of results for Dunwich. There was Dunwich county, which began just West of the Miskatonic River and mostly covered protected forests. Since there weren’t any other hits in the United States, he decided a non-digital search was in order.

Henry Armitage (the Third) was the chief librarian of the university’s main library and curator of its small museum. Carlos had little technical reason to be there during his studies, as he was too often falling sleep at a desk in the massive, cement science library, sometimes sleeping right past the midnight alarm to wake sleeping students before they were locked in. But he was there on a work-study scholarship, and spent many undergraduate hours in the oaken main library. At first Carlos thought it would be a snooze of a job – watching people swipe their cards as they came in, stamping their books before it was digitized – but he soon discovered that Professor Armitage cared a good deal more about the books in his library than anyone Carlos had ever seen. That meant daily inspections and sweeping hallways and shelves that no one visited. His final year, Carlos graduated to carrying a set of emergency keys to the locked cages holding the university’s most precious treasures, which he was only allowed to use to make sure they were locked, not to open the iron doors and go in himself. Over the few years he was there he saw only a few requests to enter and retrieve one of the books from the special catalog. They were all rejected.

“Carlos!” It had taken him six months to stop calling him ‘Charles.’ “How are you, my boy?”

They shook hands in the inner corridor as students passed by with books to re-shelve. “Professor.”

“I was wondering when I was going to see you. Night Vale has a way of swallowing people up.” Armitage, as usual, knew everything about everybody.

“It hasn’t gotten me yet,” Carlos laughed, wondering how much of that was true. “I am applying for a grant extension.”

“And I would happily support it if you would agree to write a book on Night Vale.” His yellowing teeth showed as he smiled slyly. “But you won’t do that, will you?”

“I do want to go back,” he said, the most honest answer he could have given. “I want to be able to _get_ back.”

The professor had no books on Night Vale. Carlos knew from adamantly searching before his trip. There was a glossy pamphlet by Strexcorp about Desert Bluffs from the 1970’s, but that was it.

They retreated to his office for tea, though it was hard to tell his office apart from the rest of the library with its book-lined walls, most of them in languages Carlos couldn’t read. He offered anecdotes about Night Vale, though very few of them made sense. Armitage took that all in stride. He wanted to know the difference between modified and unmodified Sumerian, but Carlos hadn’t gone to any classes. Carlos mentioned the radio, but not really at any length, except to mention Khoshekh. He did have a picture, but Khoshekh wasn’t in it so much as a big ball of static was.

Eventually the topic wandered to Carlos’s current areas of research, and together things he had to catch up on while he was not in Night Vale. “Have you ever heard of Dunwich?”

Armitage looked both amused and terrified by the suggestion, as if he were expecting not precisely it, but at least some unintentionally worrisome question from his former protégé. “The town, I assume?”

“I could only find the county And it wasn’t listed under abandoned and ghost towns, because I checked.”

“Of course you would,” Armitage said. “What is your particular interest in this case?”

At least the professor was not going to deny that it was a town. Carlos had a feeling he would have done so to a more casual acquaintance. “I’m looking for someone, and all I know about her is that she passed through Dunwich and had a very ... tragic incident there.”

“Not recently?”

“Forty-six years ago.”

“That makes a bit more sense.” Armitage reached into his pocket to retrieve his pipe. He wasn’t allowed to smoke in the library anymore, but he could still suck on it. “Back then Dunwich was still partially inhabited. Officially, it was dissolved by the state of Massachusetts in 1955. The population was too low to sustain itself and deemed not worthy of social services. It’s zip code was revoked, mail delivery stopped, et cetera. But some people stayed, as they always do in places like this, until the government declared eminent domain and forced them off the land in ‘78. It was a handful of people then.” He sucked on the pipe as if it was lit, though it did still smell of tobacco. “They’re gone now. The valley was flooded to make the Quabbin Reservoir. All that’s left are the blood stone circles in the high places. You can see the tip of them sometimes.”

Carlos knew then he was on the right track. “I need whatever you have on Dunwich.”

Armitage eyed him for a moment, as if sizing him up, and went to retrieve a loose-bound journal from one of his book cases. It looked very, very old. “This is my grandfather’s journal. He was involved in the Horror of 1928. Beyond that, you’re going to have to do your own research, Carlos.”

“Yes sir,” he said instinctively, and was smiling.

            ***********************************************

The journal was disjointed and often difficult to read because of the handwriting, which became sloppier when the writer became more aware of the danger he was in, but Carlos had seen worse. “The Horror of 1928” seemed to refer to the death of one or two or three monsters (Carlos couldn’t tell), the result of a wizard and his niece’s possibly cohabitation to create a force that would rule the world. Nearly half the town was destroyed, cattle and people were eaten in the night, and all in all it sounded like an ordinary week in Night Vale. Professor Armitage (the First) wrote a great deal about abject horror and forbidden gods that the ancient “Indians” worshipped on the hill before the Dunwich folk degenerated into salvages themselves. In other words, it was a little bit racist, but he got a pass because of the time period in which it was written. Carlos still rolled his eyes a few times.

Microfilm (a medium he hated for never being improved upon) copies of old local papers in Arkham, Salem, and Boston told him the story was at least partially true. They had much less to say about specific events, but they did confirm the mass deaths in Dunwich, and one editorial commented on the puzzling lack of investigation following them. Carlos got the idea that people back then just plain didn’t like Dunwich. He continued on for hours, flipping ahead through the years to see the Arkham Daily articles about the government’s seizure of the land and a long commentary by one of the people in charge of rounding up the squatters about how the work was just and reservoir should be built as fast as possible. He mentioned deformed goatish appearances on the people, along with deformed limbs and in one case, what appeared to be a third eye.

All references to the people of Dunwich disappeared at that point. In fact, he couldn’t find anything for 1967. It was only by sifting through each and every article from local papers – most of them now lost to news conglomerates – that he found what he was looking for.

COLLEGE TEENS MISSING

> Pembroke College of Brown University has  
>  reported the disappearance of three female  
>  students. They are identified in the photos below.  
>  They were last seen departing north for Arkham  
>  via the Ayelsbury Pike on Friday before the  
>  holiday weekend. Anyone with any knowledge  
>  about their whereabouts should contact  
>  the police immediately.

Needless to say, one of them was Marie Baldwin. An ordinary-looking college girl of the time, with long blond hair and the air of someone with the kind of wealth to go to Brown.

He only found one additional article, pleading for more help and saying the investigation was still ongoing. Nothing beyond that. The other two had also dropped off the face of the earth, according to Google. Maybe they weren’t even alive. But something had happened in Dunwich, now flooded, and probably in a bloodstone circle.

            ***********************************************

The report to the heads of the Environmental Sciences Department was long but went surprisingly well, considering how much impossible data he had submitted. At this point he was fairly good at explaining the consistent inconsistencies of Night Vale, though he had no working theory on the earthquakes except that maybe the town was built on something other than bedrock, and he couldn’t explain the new gluten-free attitude other than “wheat and its byproducts provide breeding grounds for certain types of snakes, I guess.” The panel did pretty well with his scattered evidence, grainy photographs, and exploded devices. A lot of samples of oozes were cataloged and sent to different universities for testing, along with a rock from Radon Canyon. Conclusions he did not have, but he had data, and they loved data.

“Professor,” they said the next day, because he was technically a professor, even if he had only taught as a TA, “we’ll be renewing your grant, pending your acceptance of additional requests for biological material. And you’re sure you don’t want any more assistants? There are graduate students lined up for this project.”

He shook his head furiously. He wasn’t going to have any more deaths on his clock.

As he waited for the paperwork through, he left excited messages on Cecil’s phone about how he was coming back, and with even more money and equipment this time. He didn’t say what it was for because he wasn’t an idiot.

“That sounds neat!” Cecil’s voice mail told him when he called back an hour later. There were a couple missed calls from Cecil, all from times when Carlos was very available and had good reception, so he figured the calls were dropping out as they had expected they would. Cecil’s next voicemail message was, “Did I say neat again? I am _sooooooo_ sorry.”

Carlos knew better than to tell him about Dunwich with the Sheriff’s Secret Police listening. Instead he spent a day working up the courage to see Professor Armitage again, and not just to return the journal. “It says in the journal that someone came here to see the Necronomicon. I want to see what page he looked at.”

Armitage took a deep breath. “I knew giving you my grandfather’s journals was going nowhere good, but ... Carlos, I have to know what this is about.”

“Lavinia Whateley got pregnant in Dunwich by something that produced the Horror. I think that’s happened at least once since.”

“And the woman?”

“I can’t find her.”

“Then hire a private investigator.”

Carlos sighed. He did not want to say anything else. But he wanted access to that book.

“It’s about the child, isn’t it? It would be a grown man or woman now. An existential horror in a passably human body,” Armitage said, because he was a smart man. “And it’s in Night Vale.”

“Please,” Carlos pleaded. He would go on his knees if he had to. “I only need to see one page.”

“Is it going to get you killed?”

“Compared to everything else I experience in Night Vale? No. Absolutely not.” It was one thing he could be sure of.

Armitage opened his desk drawer and pulled out a key Carlos had never seen before. “Please don’t make me regret this.”

            ***********************************************

Carlos had never been inside the locked room on the second floor, just checked to make sure it remained locked. It wasn’t a room so much as a glass cage with shelves inside, surrounded by another cage with steel bars. The shelves had backing so no one could see inside. It was very far out from the elevator, next to shelves of things people would not possibly want to look up, mostly historical journals that were unknown to the general public and incredibly boring and outdated history books.

“Cell phone,” Armitage said, putting his up on the shelf outside and indicating for Carlos to do so. “It goes a little haywire in there.” He also gave Carlos an iodine tablet to take and Purell to wash his hands. “Do you have any other electronic devices on you?”

“No.”

“It may make your watch lose time.”

Carlos nearly laughed. “I’m used to it.” His watch was currently running backwards, something he hadn’t corrected since it started doing that a month ago.

Armitage was a little cheered by the response, which only served to highlight how nervous he was. “The page you want – I have a catalog of the different versions so we can figure out which page in our addition corresponds to 751 in the John Dee edition from Dunwich. You can read that page, and only that page. Don’t read it aloud and don’t take notes. Even if you memorize it, don’t write it down later. Understand?”

Carlos nodded. Armitage opened the door only a sliver so they had to squeeze their way in. The first thing that hit him was the smell – perhaps the worst smell he’d ever experienced, and he’d recently had cause to be around dead bodies baking in the sun. He put his hand to his nose. Armitage was talking but he could only barely hear what he was saying. There was a heaviness in the air and it sounded like they were underwater. His mouth had a metallic taste and he hoped it wasn’t from radiation poisoning.

There were many mysterious books, all without catalog numbers visible, but they were only interested in one. It was placed fairly inconspicuously, between two much taller and heavier books, wrapped in a protective manila folder. Professor Armitage set it on the tiny desk in the room and began flipping through it. A handkerchief protected his fingers from actually touching the pages. The book looked harmless enough – not made of animal skin or currently trying to bite its owner – but the humming in the room began when it opened and Carlos wanted to leave very badly. Fighting against it was a Night Vale-honed instinct.

Armitage didn’t speak, just pointed to the open page. Carlos, who now felt as if his teeth were metal and he was talking through soup, sat down in the stool and read.

> Nor is it to be thought...that man is either the oldest or the last of earth's masters, or that the common bulk of life and substance walks alone. The Old Ones were, the Old Ones are, and the Old Ones shall be. Not in the spaces we know, but between them, they walk serene and primal, undimensioned and to us unseen. Yog-Sothoth knows the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the key and guardian of the gate. Past, present, future, all are one in Yog-Sothoth. He knows where the Old Ones broke through of old, and where They shall break through again. He knows where They had trod earth's fields, and where They still tread them, and why no one can behold Them as They tread. By Their smell can men sometimes know Them near, but of Their semblance can no man know, saving only in the features of those They have begotten on mankind; and of those are there many sorts, differing in likeness from man's truest eidolon to that shape without sight or substance which is Them. They walk unseen and foul in lonely places where the Words have been spoken and the Rites howled through at their Seasons. The wind gibbers with Their voices, and the earth mutters with Their consciousness. They bend the forest and crush the city, yet may not forest or city behold the hand that smites. Kadath in the cold waste hath known Them, and what man knows Kadath? The ice desert of the South and the sunken isles of Ocean hold stones whereon Their seal is engraver, but who hath seen the deep frozen city or the sealed tower long garlanded with seaweed and barnacles? Great Cthulhu is Their cousin, yet can he spy Them only dimly. Iä! Shub-Niggurath! As a foulness shall ye know Them. Their hand is at your throats, yet ye see Them not; and Their habitation is even one with your guarded threshold. Yog-Sothoth is the key to the gate, whereby the spheres meet. Man rules now where They ruled once; They shall soon rule where man rules now. After summer is winter, after winter summer. They wait patient and potent, for here shall They reign again.

A less experienced Carlos might have thought it completely nonsense. He still pretty much did. Fortunately he had a fantastic memory even though he had an inner instinct to forget it all as soon as possible with copious amounts of alcohol and maybe a roofie.

He indicated that he was done with hand gestures, and Armitage replaced the book on the shelf. When they left even the stale, recycled library air seemed fresh as a mountain top on a windy day. The metal taste remained, and Carlos felt nauseous. “Thank you,” he said, though not feeling very thankful at the moment. He needed to drink and sleep but he knew if he slept now, he would have very bad dreams.

“So this man you know – is he like that?” Meaning, _does he smell of evil?_

“No. He’s wonderful.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Necronomicon segment is not my own. It is taken directly from "The Dunwich Horror."


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Carlos did take Armitage’s advice, and hired a private investigator. It turned out they could do more than find out if husbands were cheating on their wives, or so the man promised. He did this before collapsing in bed after copious vomiting and the consumption of Gatorade. He dreamed of the Glow Cloud and the sand wastes, and of the time he saw massive footprints in Radon Canyon. Whenever he woke – which was often – he called Cecil and re-listened to the voicemail. He only left one message, and he did not think too much over the words before he said them. “I miss you. I miss Night Vale. I’m coming home soon.”

The next few days were filled with ordering equipment, filling out requisition forms, and a few mandatory lectures to private groups to technically qualify as a teacher for the grant application. There were meetings with chemists, mostly about how inconclusive their findings were and how they needed more samples. Fortunately the blue goop he found in the tape deck did not cause people’s skin to grow temporary eyeballs as it had in Night Vale, just caused a nasty rash and a call to the CDC for more information that they didn’t have either. A lot of of grad students presented themselves to him. They were as eager as he had been to find a good project for their dissertation (and an excuse to get out of town for a year or two). That was led him to spend six months trekking around Papua New Guinea, collecting soil samples for a professor who was studying acid rain but rarely left his hut.

“It’s extremely hot there. Like Death Valley.” The “death” was certainly appropriate. “One of my students died of dehydration. I can’t be responsible for your welfare.” He did not add that all of the water had been sucked from Janine’s body by a hooded figure, followed by her blood and most of her flesh. But that was what she got from trying to take readings from the Dog Park.

In the meantime he did enjoy the non-sentient pizza, the selection of semi-legitimate college town ethnic food, and reliable sundowns. He spent one night looking up at the stars. It seemed that the void was hidden by their brightness, but he knew this to be illusory.

Carlos was beginning to pack everything he would need to ship to California for his return journey from a man who called back sooner than he thought he would. He charged a lot, but was worth every penny.

“Cecil,” he said on the phone. “I found her. She’s in Sacramento. I could make a detour on the way home and see her. If you wanted me to.”

Three minutes later, the voicemail changed to a single sentence.

“Tell her I love her.”

            ***********************************************

The arrangements took a few days out of his calendar, delaying his return to Night Vale, and Carlos did not call ahead. He did not know what to say.

Three days later he was standing on the porch steps of a bright, sun-baked house in Sacramento, facing a man he could only stare at because he looked so much like Cecil, and yet looked so much like someone he could quantify. He could describe this man. He was tall, not short. He was thin, not fat. His hair was brown, and quite dark, and his eyes were brown and probably stayed that way. He was not wearing a ridiculous sweater vest despite the heat – rather, he was appropriately dressed in a collared shirt and khakis. The expensive-looking watch on his wrist probably ran properly. And his face did not brighten at the sight of Carlos. Rather he glared back, making Carlos very conscious of the fact that he been staring and not speaking.

“I’m here to see Miss Marie Baldwin,” Carlos stammered out at last. “I understand her name is Mrs. Kowalski now.”

This not-quite-doppelganger looked suspicious, as he probably had a right to be. “And you are …?”

“Carlos,” he said. At least this part he had rehearsed. “I’m a professor from Miskatonic University. I’m here on behalf of a mutual friend.”

“I’ve never heard of you,” the man said, looking increasingly frustrated. “And you’re too young to have known my mother by her maiden name.”

“As I said, this visit is for a friend who’s unable to make the journey at this time. His name is Cecil.”

“And he’s who, exactly?”

“Cecil. Cecil Baldwin.” He assumed – or hoped – that the last bit did not require further explanation, at least for the time being. The man, who was obviously her son from another marriage and Cecil’s half-brother, might not know anything about Cecil, and from the lack to response to the name Carlos would put money on it. Further information was not for a front porch. “Could I please talk to Mrs. Kowalski?”

“Let me ask,” the other man answered, and fully shut the door when he entered the house, leaving Carlos to sweat on the porch. It took him a few minutes to return, still looking skeptical but slightly more relaxed. “I’m sorry. My mother had a bit of an accident a few weeks ago – a fall – and I’m staying with her while she’s recovering. It’s very hard for people her age to get their confidence back. So no surprises, understand?”

“Yes.”

“I’m Tom,” the man explained and they shook hands. “I don’t know what this is about, but she is very eager to see you. This Cecil guy isn’t dead, is he?”

“No, he’s very much alive. He’s fine, actually.”

“She doesn’t need more bad news right now.”

“Only good news. I promise.” The visit would be upsetting for its own reasons, but certainly not for any new ones. Carlos followed him into the house, which was neat and clean and had the look of a small place for a senior, maybe a place to live after the kids moved out and a bigger home wasn’t needed. And there was evidence of kids – photos on the wall of her and her husband (the private detective said she was a widow) with three children, growing older and older as the years passed, and then smaller kids that were clearly grandchildren. Their drawings hung on the fridge. She had lived a full life and there was evidence of it. She’d been able to move on. Carlos smiled even as guilt struck him of what he was about to bring down on her. It was, after all, a terrible reminder.

“Mrs. Kowalski.” He introduced himself to Cecil’s mother, who rose to great him only with protests from her protective son. One of her arms was still in a brace and there was a cane resting against the arm of the couch, but otherwise she seemed fine. There was much of Cecil in her when she smiled, and her hair was white like his often was, but for different reasons. “Thank you for seeing me. I know it’s been a very long time since you’ve seen Cecil, and he asked me to get in touch with you.”

There were too many emotions on her face for him to read as she retook her seat and offered him one across from her. “Tom, put some tea on. Would you like some tea, Professor?”

“Carlos is fine. And yes, I would love some.”

When Tom disappeared, her expression changed. “He doesn’t know. I’ve never told anyone. Not even my husband.”

“I didn’t say anything that would – “

“How is Cecil?”

“He’s fine. He’s great, actually.” This was a relief to say, after clearing one hurdle. “He works at the radio station and he’s very happy. He just can’t leave Night Vale. I don’t think he’s ever left. So when he knew I was taking a trip – “

“You’re living in Night Vale?”

“I’m doing research there on behalf of the university,” he explained. “We’re friends. And Night Vale, obviously, has allowed me to stay. Just me. Not any of my assistants. They all ... left.” And in horrible ways. “He wants me to tell you that he loves you.”

Her face lit up. “Does he even know who I am? Did someone tell him?”

“He knows ... some of the story. And your name. That’s about it. He didn’t have a very conventional childhood by our standards, but a lot of children lose their parents in Night Vale, so by his standards it was just fine. Or that’s how he describes it.” He stopped talking when Tom reentered with the cups of hot water and a box of tea bags. Carlos felt a rush of nostalgia at seeing familiar, soothing flavors – even the ones he didn’t like – and knowing that none of them would cause a massive chemical change to his body or understanding of the universe.

Seeing that he was hesitant to speak, Mrs. Kowalski looked and her son and said, “Tom, sit down. There’s something I have to tell you.” He looked right back at Carlos. “Did anyone tell you the whole story?”

“I pieced a lot of it together from the attending nurse, who is still alive. And Dunwich is not far from Miskatonic, so we have some material on it. The whole valley was flooded to make a reservoir. But obviously, a lot of details are missing. If you don’t want to share – “

She took a deep breath. She was old and frail and he felt bad about doing this to her, but her eyes had a look of gathering determination. “I’ve never told the story. Perhaps I should do it at least once.” She raised her hand to the beginning noises of her son’s objection. “It’s time you know something, something I never even told your father.” She took a single sit of her tea and set it down. “Before I met Edward, I had a son. I gave him up for adoption because I couldn’t handle a baby and I knew that my parents wouldn’t take care of him either. I was just a college student. Barely more than a girl. So that’s who Cecil is. Your half-brother.”

“Mom – “ Tom said it and then stopped, maybe realizing that he had no way of finishing that sentence. Not right away. There was nothing he could say that wouldn’t be a judgment. Or maybe he was just in shock.

“I was a sophomore at Brown when it happened,” she explained, clearly not meaning Cecil by the ‘it.’ “I had some friends, and we decided to drive to Boston for the weekend. A little getaway. But there was a lot of traffic on the highway and someone suggested some alternate route that went into the back woods.”

“The Aylesbury Pike,” Carlos added quietly.

“That sounds right. Our car broke down on the road when it was down to a single lane and we had to walk, the three of us, to this little town called Dunwich. It wasn’t labeled or anything – we had to ask where we were at the store. They didn’t have a phone, but they offered to help us fix the car. And, well ...” She swallowed, her eyes looking glassy from approaching tears. “I don’t want to go into detail, what they did to us. There was a big thing – man – in a stone circle and – it was terrible.” She wiped her eye as if she was trying to make it look like it was just suddenly itchy. “They killed Jane and Sandra after. I don’t remember how. I’ve tried very hard to forget, but I still remember there was so much blood – “

“Mom,” Tom said as he grabbed a box of tissues and joined her on the touch, letting her rest her head on his shoulder. “Mom.” He just kept repeating that, occasionally offering Carlos a glare that reminded him of a sort-of broken promise. “Mom, it’s okay. You don’t have to do this.”

“No,” she said, but only after a lot of time recovering. “Let me finish. I’ve tried to so hard to forget but I still remember. It must be for a reason.” She managed to mostly detach herself from him, though he kept an arm around her shoulder. “I thought they left me for dead. I don’t know how long I was unconscious, but when I got up and returned to the car, it worked as if it had never been broken. They never found out what was wrong with it. It just makes me think – anyway, enough of that. I went to the police in Arkham, and they were very sympathetic, and kept it out of the papers for the most part, but they wouldn’t investigate. They said it was no use and I had this terrible feeling that they were right. It wouldn’t undo anything anyway.

“I didn’t tell your grandparents any details. I didn’t tell them anything. We didn’t have all these phones so you could go missing for a weekend and they were back in Des Moines, so ...And I tried to get past it, at least until I realized I was pregnant. This was back when you couldn’t just go to a clinic. There weren’t clinics. Everyone I told said, ‘Go to Puerto Rico,’ because that was where the good doctors were, but I couldn’t afford it. So I dropped out of school and went to New York to look for someone. I had some leads. My parents just thought I was going through a phase. I was smoking a lot of hash, trying to get through it, working as a waitress to try to save up for the procedure and pay for my drugs. And that’s how I met Shaggy – we called him that because he had hair like a shag rug. I was showing by then and he was very protective of me. To this day, I don’t know why...” She shook her head, and it was time for another break, and more nervous sipping of tea, and another box of tissues, just in case. “After everything it did to him – that town did to him – “

“What town?”

Carlos answered for her. “Night Vale.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Seriously guys, don't smoke anything when you're pregnant. And if you needed me to tell you that, maybe it's time to give adoption a chance.

Chapter 5

New York

1968

“Hey, hot mama,” the patron said, putting a quarter in the tip jar beside the bar. “You working late tonight?”

“Always,” Marie said, which was her way of avoiding the question. She put up with the seedy customers because the job paid well in tips, either from horny guys or sympathetic ones, which became more and more often after she started showing. She hid it at first, then realized there was no real reason. No one knew her here – not even her real name (she went by Mary). She had died her hair, just to be sure, and sported the local hippie trends in clothing rather than her more conservative college wear. It was not anything her parents would approve of, but they wouldn’t approve of her being nine months pregnant either.

The other employees were impressed that she was still working, but it was a necessity. She was completely out of funds and barely making the rent for her extensively cheap flat infested with every kind of bug. She went home at night with the food being thrown out of restaurants – perfectly good stuff that wouldn’t last for tomorrow night’s entrees. She ate everything because she was always hungry.

At first, after she gave up finding a doctor in New York she could trust her life to, she smoked a lot of weed, or whatever she could get her hands on that wasn’t too serious. She still did, occasionally. She didn’t have the money, but Shaggy, her dealer, was very understanding and he would come by late at night – morning, really – with some extra stuff. It wouldn’t hurt the baby, he said. Probably. It wasn’t like she was drinking.

In fact, she was starting to get the feeling that _nothing_ could hurt this baby.

By the time she finally got off her bloated feet, surrounded by boxes of cakes, breads, and other discards, it was nearly dawn. Shaggy came by as usual. Sometimes he stayed. He was a really nice guy, and despite his profession he was possibly the most innocent guy in Brooklyn. “You remind me of my mom,” he told her once, which she strangely decided she wanted to hear. “We’re Catholic, so she was pregnant a lot when I was growing up.” He was not afraid to touch her belly, and never asked to do more than that.

He showed up with a little weed, but it didn’t take the edge off her pain. Her whole body hurt, and not just from standing. She knew the baby was coming any day now – it had to be – and she had yet to see a doctor.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Shaggy said, rubbing one of her feet.

“Not really.” And she needed stronger medication than today’s leftovers. “This baby’s going to be born high.”

“Doesn’t sound like such a bad thing.”

She shook her head. “This baby’s going to be fucked up. I know it.” They were not words she would have used nine months ago, in any kind of conversation. She grimaced from another wave of pain. They were coming a lot in the night now. It seemed like it was whenever she wanted to sleep.

“No. He’s a trooper.” Shaggy was never judgmental and always supportive, which was why she liked him. She wondered what she was going to think of him, after she had it, after she gave up the baby –

Her mind flew to the doors of some Godforsaken church, with nuns and all and the basket on the front steps, and a guilty shiver ran down her spine. Frankly, she wasn’t sure she could do it. “It could be a she.” Marie tried not to think, _It could be an ‘it_.’ She was trying to get away from that kind of thinking. It never worked.

“Nope. It’s a guy. We’re so much trouble.”

She tried to sleep, but she was really just pretending. Shaggy believed her and he drifted off beside her on the mattress. She watched the sun come up through the window, the signal of another long, hard day. But she was not alone in her thoughts – she was sure of it. It hadn’t started right away, more like maybe a couple months ago, but she always felt as if there were someone else there, and not just in the way other expectant mothers described having a baby inside them. They didn’t say they felt like there was another mind inside her body, maybe an even stronger one, but it was like all the thoughts were behind a cloudy windowpane.

She hadn’t had the abortion because the baby was stronger than her. She only admitted this to herself when it was late like this, or early, and she couldn’t sleep, because the baby wasn’t sleeping either. Weren’t they just supposed to ... gestate?

Why, why hadn’t she stayed on the main road? How could her whole life come down to a stupid right turn?

She couldn’t think about her friends. She was carrying so much weight already. And there was some survivor guilt, of course – _they_ weren’t stuck with a monster baby.

Shaggy woke around noon. She didn’t even notice him at first, until she heard flushing and he emerged from the bathroom, his face still dripping. “Did you get any sleep?”

She shook her head. “Too much pain.”

“Have you thought about, you know, going to the hospital?”

“I’m too scared.” She couldn’t say why. She could not figure out why, but she was scared of those white hallways and people in white coats. _I’m scared they’ll do something to the baby_ , she realized. She tried to sit up, so she could manage her way to the bathroom, but instead she just said, “Ow.”

“So stop me if I say anything crazy, but maybe it’s not a good idea to have a baby on a futon,” he said, helping her to her feet – barely. One hand stayed on her stomach area. She could not stand all the way up.

She gave in because she was too weak to do otherwise. She didn’t know if she was in labor but she didn’t know what it felt like to be in labor. Everyone said she would “just know” but this baby was so unusual and she was so tired she could barely think. So she let this man she barely knew beyond being her hash dealer make the decisions, at least until they got to the hospital.

“Has your water broken?” the impatient nurse asked, as if Marie was supposed to know this stuff, and she was already a bad mother for not doing so, and the nurse knew she was not planning on raising this baby – that was why she was in New York, with a man but without a wedding ring.

The question was answered promptly by a splash between her legs, but it wasn’t water. She didn’t know what it was, but it made her scream. And it made the nurse scream. Shaggy ran in from the hallway and said, “Holy shit,” which was a little better than screaming. It was a gooey substance, the color of black ink but thicker than it, and it made Marie remember things she had not remembered since that horrible night in Dunwich, and the feeling of tendrils inside of her ...

There was a lot of screaming and rushing and next thing she knew she was on a cot and there were a lot of doctors coming in and out through curtains with masks and goggles and thick gloves.

“Shaggy!” she shouted, and she was surprised he could hear her. She couldn’t see him. She couldn’t focus her eyes. She only really knew he was there when he took her hand and put their palms together. “Shaggy, we have to go.”

He was a blob in front of her, a blob of skin and brown hair against the white wall, looking pensive. A pensive blob. “I think these guys need to take care of you.”

“No,” she said with all the authority she could muster, and some that she knew wasn’t her own. “ _They’re going to hurt my baby_.” She pulled him in. “They’re going to _kill it_.” She dug her nails into his skin. She would hurt him if she had to. She would do anything she had to do, she knew. “Please. Get me out of here. I can’t go myself.” Even though she would, if she had to. She could do anything.

Shaggy took a little convincing, maybe. She wasn’t sure what she was saying anymore, not because of the words but because it felt like she wasn’t always saying them, and she wasn’t bothered by this. That presence that had been hanging around her so long had better instincts than she did, she knew now. That was why it was there.

“Okay, I’ll tell them you’re going to the bathroom, and you take your clothes in there with you, and we’ll go out the back.” He didn’t even ask if she was sure. He just threw a blanket over her shoulders and most of her head when she came out and they walked through a back hallway. She thought she saw a man in a hazmat suit passing her on the way out.

“Where do you want to go?” he asked, and she realized they were already in the car.”

“West,” she said. “Out of the city.”

“Can you be a little more specific?”

Maybe she was, maybe she wasn’t. Time seemed to be happening without her. She would flash in and our of conversation she was having, and was obviously ongoing, with Shaggy. He said he was trying to keep her awake. They stopped for water somewhere, or must have, and he kept telling her to drink. He talked and talked and talked and she only heard some of it, but she didn’t complain. It wasn’t his fault. He told her his real name and about his family and why he was living in New York, and what kind of music he liked and why he’d dropped out of Kent State and what he thought of Vietnam. Most of time, it was just a buzzing sound.

She was pretty sure she was in labor now, but she didn’t tell him that. He’d figure it out.

“Hey. Mary.” He nudged her, and she realized he was on the other side of the car, with her door open, trying to shake her into consciousness. “Mary, please. I did what you asked, but I can’t help you deliver this baby. We have to go somewhere.”

“Where are we?”

Very nervously he answered, “Lost.”

She finally realized her eyes weren’t open, and the setting sun hit them _very_ hard. It was particular bright because it was in the desert, with nothing but sand dunes in every direction.

It did not look like Pennsylvania.

“There was a sign on the road a couple miles back. There’s two towns nearby, Desert Bluffs and Night Vale – “

“Night Vale,” she said instantaneously, and it wasn’t her talking again.

“You’ve heard of it?”

“No,” she said. Her voice was barely a whisper now, and he made her drink again. “But we have to go there. And Desert Bluffs sounds _terrible_. When did we reach the desert?”

“ ... I don’t know.” But he got back in the car, and they drove, seeing only a shiny billboard for Desert Bluffs before taking the turn without a sign, and no exit number. It was barely a road at that point with only a suggestion of pavement, and empty fields on each side, but there were lights up ahead and they looked warm to her, and Marie noticed that with the sun gone and the sweat on her body cooling, she was freezing beyond a point where the hospital blankets could help her.

There was no one in the streets, which were themselves only partially lit. It wasn’t that late at night – shouldn’t there at least be some cars on the streets? Or so Shaggy commented, but she kept her eyes on something else, as if it was welcoming her. “Look.” She managed to point, not that it helped him much. “The lights above the Burger Chef.”

“Oh, wow.” But he sounded distracted. “There must be a fireworks display or something. Maybe that’s where everyone is.”

She couldn’t take her eyes off them. If she focused, maybe she could forget the pain that was now so constant, coming in rushing waves like a fast-moving tide. She didn’t see the hospital at all until Shaggy was back on her side of the car, opening the door. “Come on. I know it’s a hospital, but – “

But she had to go somewhere. He put one of her arms over his shoulder and practically carried her, pushing the glass doors open himself. “Hello? Woman in labor here! We need a doctor!”

The nurse’s station was empty. There was a radio on the desk, one of the big wooden ones that belonged in living rooms, and the volume was all the way up. “Two strangers have arrived in Night Vale,” the announcer said in a very sonorous voice. “What do you say, listeners? Should we give them shelter? It sounds like they need it.”

Neither of them had a response to the open question apparently being posed to them by someone far away because a nurse did appear, as if out of nowhere, in her gown and little white hat and pinched face. “Hello, dear. The doctor will be here soon. He’s busy with a cub scout emergency. So let’s get you up on a bed. How are you even standing?” She was polite and even calm and she did not make Shaggy leave. “What’s your name?”

“Marie.” There was nothing left in her to put up any barriers or lie about anything. Marie Baldwin.”

“Now don’t worry – we’ve delivered our fair share of babies here like any other town. I’ve even done it unassisted, though I don’t think it will come to that. Can I have a peak?”

Marie nodded, and put her knees up. It hurt but so did everything else. At least the blankets were dry and they were alone so far.

“Hmmm,” the nurse said without looking up. “You’re dilated but I can see there might be a problem with the position of the baby. But don’t worry! It’s not uncommon. Some of them are a little stubborn, that’s all.” She left to get the doctor as if nothing was the matter at all, and Marie deluded herself into thinking that maybe nothing was, and she was going to have a normal baby after all. And that she was safe.

The doctor arrived, with thick glasses and a calm look on his face. “Ma’am. Let’s see what we have here, all right? This may hurt a bit.”

She nodded, knowing it would be nothing to what she was going through, and he disappeared under the tent made of her gown and blankets.

“There we go!” the doctor said, as if amused. “The baby’s turned around. This one needs to come out head first because of the gestational tentacles.”

“The what?” Shaggy had the strength to say, and strangely Marie wanted to hit him for it, as if he was questioning her baby.

“They’ll probably dry up and come off in the next few days, if some of them aren’t detached already – you know, the usual. I’m just going to slowly shift the body and then you’re going to push. Nurse Woods, can you start an IV for dehydration?”

She remembered very little of what happened next, other than being in the most intense pain of her life, the night in Dunwich included. She remembered gripping Shaggy’s wrist hard, and him gripping her back harder because he could see beyond the cover of the sheets, and he made some noises she couldn’t understand and kissed her on the forehead. Only later did she realize he was saying goodbye.

“It’s a boy!” said the doctor, but she already knew. She’d known for a long time. She’d known so many things but not really known them or been able to speak of them, even to herself. “Now there’s just the afterbirth – one more big push – “

Nurse Woods held up the baby, covered in blood and green goop. It had two arms and legs, ten fingers and toes, and five flailing tentacles that were almost translucent emerging from the shoulders around the neck.

Marie passed out before she could scream.

            ***********************************************

Next time she saw the baby it was better, but her vision was still like cloudy. Now bathed, her baby boy – her son – was handed to her wrapped in clean white blankets that matched his snow white hair, of which there was a surprising amount. He was wrapped up too tightly to show anything else, except maybe a stray tentacle swinging limp and loose through the bottom hole.

She loved him anyway. Maybe it hadn’t been her first instinct, but she did. She loved his boy with a normal baby face and one normal, human hand sticking out, his finger clenching at the air.

“He’s perfect,” she said, the nurse nodding in agreement. “He’s going to be a perfect little boy.”

“Everyone’s going to love him. Half the people in town already do, thanks to the radio show. Algonquin thinks he’s big news,” the nurse said. She let the baby coo but he was otherwise silent. “Unfortunately you’re not going to be able to breast feed because he has some infant teeth in the back, and they’re rather sharp. They’ll pop out when his baby teeth come in.”

Marie just nodded because it was all she could really do. It took her hours to ask where Shaggy was, and they only told her after they put the baby in his plastic bassinet. “Oh, dear, there’s been a horrible accident – “ Marie decided to believe them. She knew her child wasn’t a monster, the kind of inescapable horror that made you want to kill yourself rather than live with another minute of that mental image. She sobbed and sobbed and every last bit of fluid that could possibly left in her devastated body came out, and for the first time since Dunwich she felt real loss. It took her body a long time to recover, and her mind longer. The hospital took care of the baby.

A man stopped by, if she could properly call him a man, but she could not. He was nine feet tall and had arms like a gorilla, thick like tree roots, and a set of horns on his head. But the most distinct thing about him was that his hair was abundant and pink, almost like fur but not quite. She recognized his voice from the radio; it was unforgettable.

“I had to come by,” he said with a smile, one finger out in front of the baby, who couldn’t even wrap his hand around it, just the very long fingernail. “I’m Algonquin, the Voice of Night Vale. Welcome to our town.”

She should have been afraid of this man but she was not. She could never be afraid of him. “I’m Marie.”

“And this is ...?”

“Cecil,” she answered. “After the name of the man who gave his life to get me here.” The boy deserved better than a hippie nickname. “I don’t know how Shaggy got me here, but he did.”

“Night Vale has a certain way of attracting people,” the half-man, half-monster assured her in his voice that was both thunderous and soft at the same time, as if he was speaking for the whole universe but only to her. “It doesn’t always let them stay, but it brings them in when they need to be here. Cecil will do well here.”

She was not annoyed at his presumption. No one had said anything official, or even taken down her personal information beyond what she gave at the door. There just seemed to be an order to the way things were done. “I don’t think I can leave him.” With a gesture she indicated that it was okay for him to pick the baby up and cradle him in his massive arms. Algonquin looked very soft. “If I leave, can I come back?”

“The City Council had a meeting about it. They think it’s best not to try to predict the future under such circumstances.” Cecil did make a noise, a happy-sounding one, when Algonquin touched his tummy. All but one of the tentacles were gone now, and it was barely hanging on. “Night Vale is a special place, and it takes care of its own. You won’t have to worry about him.” He did not sound like he was being patronizing. He sounded like he was trying to comfort her from bad news.

She would never be back. She would never see this child again.

And it was for the best.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have [a Tumbler](http://djclawson.tumblr.com/) which I made for Night Vale fandom. 
> 
> Sequel, anyone? What do people want to see?
> 
> Thanks for reading!!

Chapter 6

Present

Sacramento

Marie Baldwin was, understandably, upset.

“I didn’t see him grow up. I didn’t see his first steps or hear his first words. I wasn’t part of any of that.”

“I can’t give that back to you,” Carlos said, happy that he had thought this part of the conversation out ahead of time. “But I can say he wasn’t alone. Someone was always there for him.”

“Does he talk about his childhood?”

“Not really, but it’s because he thinks it was stable and ordinary, so in his opinion, it’s not very interesting. Traditional and happy. By Night Vale’s standards anyway.”

She seemed to accept this with a heavy shrug. “I have a picture of him. They let me take it before I left. We had to do it a few times because he kept not coming out. But it’s in a safe deposit box. Not that I haven’t looked at it. I just felt at some point that it was best, and nowadays it’s hard for me to change.”

“I know what you mean. I do have a photo, but we had to use the picture from the station.” It was only odd in that Cecil was actually in a suit shirt and tie. In it his hair was ... indescribable.

When Carlos retrieved it from his leather satchel, Mrs. Kowalski started crying anew, but this time it was happy tears, and there weren’t many of them. They were gentle reminders down her face of an incomprehensible amount of emotions. Her hand was shaking as she held it to the light. “He’s so beautiful. Just like I remember him ... but different. So mature.” She wiped her eyes with help from Tom, who seemed to be running on auto since the more detailed descriptions, as if he had given up processing everything. “He had this look I could never put words to – you understand?”

“Very well.”

“He doesn’t look _anything_ like his father,” she said rather casually. “I should put this in that frame my granddaughter made for me! The purple one. It would match his tie. Tom, do you know – “

“Yeah, Mom, I’ll get it.” His voice had the distinct sound of someone who needed a task, desperately.

Carlos debated asking her about the father, who was definitely an _it_ , and she clearly remembered a little better than she said she did, but he knew no good would come of it. Some wounds would never fully heal and he would only force them further open. For now, she had gotten past all that because of what came of it, and what came of it was Cecil. “I also have his voice on my phone, though I don’t know if you’ll be able to hear it. There’s a lot of static.”

He played it and she did hear it, so he played it another two times. She declined the initial offer to leave a voice mail. “I wouldn’t begin to know what to say.” Carlos imagined that was also true of Cecil.

Carlos was invited to stay for dinner, which was a little awkward because Mrs. Kowalski did not seem fully recovered and Tom traumatized, but he did stay and help in the kitchen while she napped.

“I have a brother,” Tom said, apparently to the pot of soup. “I thought I just had sisters, but I have a brother.” He pointed a spoon at Carlos. “What is the deal with this Night Vale? Where is it?”

“I think it’s technically in New Mexico,” he replied. “I moved there last year to study it. That’s how I met Cecil.”

“Is it cursed or something?”

“There are a lot of scientific improbabilities,” he said, vastly understating it. “More than I can begin to explain. That’s what my job is for Miskatonic.”

“What kind of scientist are you?”

“Technically, environmental science.” Nobody in Night Vale had ever asked him. “They’re a little ... disconnected from the world so I was lucky to even find it.”

“This was probably a long way to go. For a friend.”

“Yeah,” he said. “But it seemed important.”

“If it wasn’t Mom’s story, I wouldn’t believe any of this.”

“If I’d never seen Night Vale, neither would I,” he said they could finally laugh about _something_.

Over dinner he told them about Cecil and Night Vale, as much as he could or thought was a good idea. He wanted to play a tape of the show, but of course none of them worked outside the town. He talked about things like the PTA (sans Glow Cloud) and Cecil’s ridiculous ongoing feud with Steve Carlsberg which he was pretty sure involved at least one sabotaging of tires, and how he broadcasted all of his emotions on the radio and no one seemed bothered by it and even seemed to like him more for it, and how a jailed man was running for mayor thanks to Cecil’s overzealous ranting, and the town’s football team was called the Spiderwolves and he did not know what those were and had never seen one, and how they had once cancelled Wednesday because of a scheduling error, and in fact they seemed to do that a lot. And strangely Carlos loved it, he told them, which was the first time he ever admitted it to himself. Cecil gave him a really hard sell, he said.

The night ended with Mrs. Kowalski agreeing to leave a message on Cecil’s voice mail, though she deleted the first couple tries because they were just stammers. “Cecil, I love you. I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you. Be ashamed of me if you want to be, because I’ll love you all the same.”

As Carlos was getting ready to leave, a text came in from Cecil.

MOM I COULD NEVER BE ASHAMED OF YOU

            ***********************************************

It was such a relief to be back in Night Vale after another flight and a long, somewhat haphazard and confusing drive. First he picked up his new supplies at a nearby town with more reliable postal service then drove to his lab. He’d almost forgotten how pressing the issue was until he met Cecil when his show was over, and Cecil came down to the loading dock for the radio station and didn’t say “Dear Carlos” or “Welcome back, Carlos” or “How was your trip?”

Instead Cecil grabbed him, pulling into a hug that was more like Cecil was clinging to him for dear life, and cried into his shoulder. His body was trembling and wracked with sobs, and it seemed like maybe his legs couldn’t support him, so Carlos said nothing and returned the hug, running one hand through Cecil’s unusually soft hair. For all of Cecil’s preaching it was really his own hair that was always spectacular in that it felt more like silk or soft fur than anything human.

That night they went back to Cecil’s apartment and Carlos broke every promise he’d made. He told him everything, from the very beginning of his own quest to the former Marie Baldwin’s somewhat confusing and sordid tale of rape and drugs. That she had tried to abort Cecil. That he was an accident of fate and maybe lack of money, if you looked at it the wrong way, but neither of them did. That his father was inhuman. His father sat at the gate between the knowable and the cosmic horror of endless void. His father was the gate. That in the end, Cecil’s mother did everything she could to save him, and a man named Shaggy but was really named Cecil gave his life for him, and had done so not knowing what he was in for. That in the end, she had gone on to a happy life despite having left him behind.

Cecil did not take all of this in easily, but he deserved it. Carlos felt soundly about that. His boyfriend described it not so much as upsetting but hard to digest. In a way he was so protected by Night Vale that he was naïve about the ordinary horrors of the world outside – that sometimes blood sacrifices were really _only_ bad and trauma was not just something to cry about in an empty bathtub and then forget. And that despite all this, good could come from all of it.

He showed Cecil the pictures on his phone of his mother and half-brother. Tomorrow they would use the station’s color printer, which worked fairly reliable but required a trip to the grocers to pick up the type of meat it liked, still on the bone usually but mostly bloodless to avoid messing with the inks.

“And I have to buy some frames,” Cecil added wistfully. “And what’s the name, the things to hold them up.”

“Nails?”

“Aw, I’m such a dolt sometimes! Forgive me, dear Carlos.”

“You’re just tired,” Carlos said, because after all that he had to be, and Carlos could recognize it in himself. He did not feel like going back to his apartment, which was empty of food that had not gained sentience while he was gone. Cecil instinctively knew this and let Carlos crawl into bed with him, which was almost a very literal crawl, and they clung to each other as if ships adrift at sea. And yet he did not sleep immediately, because he was almost too tired to do that, and if he closed his eyes he thought maybe he could hear the thoughts flying through Cecil’s frontal lobes, but that was impossible, even for Night Vale. Hopefully.

“I don’t know why you did what you did,” Cecil said softly, barely over the sound of his own breathing, “but thank you.”

He wanted to say it was because of science, but it wasn’t. For once, science was too small a word for his reasoning. He did it because he loved Cecil, but it felt weird to say that. “Anytime. Except ... maybe not soon. Plane fare is expensive.”

Cecil chuckled and Carlos was so entwined with him that he could feel it better than he could hear it.

“Maybe I’ll go to California,” Cecil said, which was the first time he ever discussed leaving Night Vale as possibility for the future. “If we’re not there already.”

“We might be. I think the town shifts around. It explains the different times to the sunsets – “

“Is it nice there?” But he meant was, _Is she happy?_

“Yes, Cecil,” he answered obediently as he felt his body start to give away to the incessant pull of sleep. “It’s very nice there.”

“Like Night Vale?”

“No,” he said, a little grumpily, because he was done saying the obvious for the day. “Nothing is like Night Vale.”

The End


End file.
